Acer Aspire S 13 review: A solid, no nonsense, affordable ultrabook

Intro

Hype can be dangerous. It often reduces great things to only good and brilliant concepts to only OK. Hype was my biggest problem coming into the launch of the AcerAspire S 13. After seeing the magnificence of something like HP’s Spectre 13 and the 12-inch Retina MacBook, I had a lot of hope going into Acer’s launch, especially when I heard from sources that the S 13 was going to be something like that.

The bad news? It was that very same hype that led me to be disappointed when I first saw the S 13 in the flesh. But, after that died down, I’m glad to say that my disappointment was completely unfounded.

WOW! OMG! WOAH! Would be appropriate reactions when someone sees the world’s thinnest laptop. Sadly, those will not be the reactions that you’ll get with the Acer Aspire S 13. It isn’t eye-catching and probably won’t turn heads when you whip it out in a sea of MacBooks in Starbucks.

But that also means the S 13 doesn’t have the bling and show-off-y stuff you’d usually find on those high-end ultra-portable laptops. It’s more blue-collared. It’s more grounded. And, it doesn’t rub your nose in the fact that you can’t afford one. To everyone else, it’s just like their laptop, except that it’s maybe slightly thinner and lighter.

It also does what it’s supposed to do rather well. Now, I don’t want to spoil your impression of this laptop by building too much hype but I’ll say this — when it came time to give the laptop back, I was more than a little sad to part ways with it.